4 minute read Our annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. From a personal perspective, one of the great tragedies of modern Test cricket is that we don’t draw the curtains, switch
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In praise of part-time bowlers
2 minute read We’ve always loved part-time bowlers. Just as many of our favourite batsmen are tail-enders, so many of our favourite bowlers are occasional fill-ins, such as Gary Ballance, Alastair Cook and James Vince. Sadly for us, it always feels like England are far more part-timer-averse than the other Test-playing nations. Michael
Continue readingThe Ashes on the BT Sport app – a review
2 minute read We’re not generally enamoured with apps, as they often seem to make the absolute least of storage space and processing power to deliver much the same content that can be found on the equivalent website. However, as a result of the televisual shenanigans that have seen BT broadcasting this Ashes
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Books to read at the cricket? Herding Cats: The Art of Amateur Cricket Captaincy by Charlie Campbell
< 1 minute read Edwardian writes Charlie Campbell is the captain of the Author’s XI. I’ve seen these roosters a couple of times at the Wormsley ‘Words and Wickets’ festival. In 2014 there was a tent displaying the latest Jaguar cars and the food was provided by Jamie Oliver. I marvelled at the burgers
Continue readingCricket’s doping crisis hasn’t arrived yet
2 minute read This week’s edition of The Spin reports that the ICC “stepped up” its dope testing at this year’s Champions Trophy when it started conducting blood tests. As someone who spends a significant proportion of his working life reading about the shortcomings of even blood testing, the idea that a sport
Continue readingA dog who may or may not look like Ben Stokes
< 1 minute read Edwardian writes: “I think my dog looks like Ben Stokes, especially in the eyebrows department. The difference between Stokes and my dog is that Digger is tucked up in his bed by 10pm every night.” Edwardian later added: “Digger is a rescue dog (I’ve had him for three months) and
Continue readingA handmade county cricket sticker album
2 minute read Honestly, what could be better than this? It’s a homemade county cricket sticker album. Here’s Darren Stevens. Here’s Vernon Philander. Here’s the England team. The album was created by John, who got in touch with us having seen Sam’s ‘artwork’ last week. You can see loads more of the stickers
Continue readingLife Beyond the Airing Cupboard by former Sussex captain John Barclay – a holiday reading review by Ged Ladd
2 minute read I read Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard in September 2009, while Daisy and I were on a short holiday in Burgundy. We had joined Daisy’s sister, Lavender and her husband, Antonio Ordóñez for a few days, then we stayed on for an extra day or two before returning home. Lavender
Continue readingSubscribing to BT Sport for the Ashes
3 minute read We’ve been bemoaning the out-of-date way in which broadcasters sell sport to consumers for quite a while now. We were mildly encouraged by changes to Sky Sports announced earlier this year, but they only went so far and also had zero bearing on the upcoming Ashes as BT Sport has
Continue readingFour-day Tests – slightly less of the duration and epic scope that define the game’s longest format
2 minute read Hurray! Four-day Tests! They’ll be much like five-day Tests, only with the unique selling point somewhat compromised. Who can fail to support an idea as clear and appealing as that one? The thinking seems to be, ‘well, maybe if each match isn’t quite such a big commitment, some countries might
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